20.5.06

Another ugly aspect of Israeli occupation in Palestine and definitely one which is degrading to the people on whom it has been imposed.

Israel reactivated a law implemented in 1996 and made more stringent in 2001 whereby taxi drivers, being Israelis or Palestinians, are required to check their passengers ID cards in order not to board illegal residents or people without an entry permit to Israel. If they are caught contravening to the law they go 30 days to prison or do 45 days of gratuitous community work in an Isareli elder house.

For Palestinians, this measure is straining the natural relationships existing between West Bankers and Jerusalemites living on both sides of the wall. One of the taxi drivers interviewed told the journalist that he was quitting his job because he was having a moral problem with this obligation.